Nexus 4 vs iPhone 5: design and build

The iPhone 5's build quality is supreme. It's thin and light, and features the new, smaller Lightning dock connector and headphone socket.

The back panel has small glass inserts, but is mainly aluminium, adding durability without extra bulk or weight.

The Nexus 4 feels great in the hand, a true premium smartphone. There's a silver bezel around the screen and, if you flip the phone over, you'll find unique finish consisting of a matrix of tiny silver dots, each reflect light at different angles. It's a love it or hate it finish.

We were initially a bit worried about the glossy finish of the Nexus 4, making it quite a slippery handset. However, between the front and back of the phone is a grippy rubbery finish. There's no removable cover and the phone feels sturdy and well-built.

Nexus 4 vs iPhone 5: screen

The Nexus 4's 4.7in IPS screen looks stunning with a detailed 768x1280 resolution, excellent contrast and rich colours. We found it performed particularly well outdoors.

The iPhone 5 is the first iPhone with a 16 by 9 display, which makes it great for watching videos. Existing apps will have to be redesigned for the new screen - in the meantime they will be displayed with black bars to fill in the spaces. The screen is taller, but not wider and feels completely natural to use: you don't have to stretch your thumb to reach things.

Nexus 4 vs iPhone 5: performance

Apple says the new A6 processor is up to twice as fast as the iPhone 4S. In our benchmarks we found this was true. The iPhone 5 scored 1650 points in Geekbench 2, compared to the 4S's score of 632. That's over 2.6 times faster.

When it comes to gaming, the iPhone 5 ran our Egypt HD test at 38fps, which is exactly twice the framerate of the 4S's 19fps.

Browsing the web is super speedy. When tested for JavaScript rendering speed, wef ound the iPhone 5 to again be around twice as fast – scoring 903ms in the SunSpider test, against 1891ms for an iPhone 4S.

The Nexus 4 offers similar performance. Inside the Nexus 4 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro, a quad-core chip clocked at a healthy 1.5GHz and 2GB of RAM. It set a new record for a phone of 2009 points in the GeekBench 2 test. It also matched the iPhone 5 in terms of graphics with 39fps in GLBenchmark.

Nexus 4 vs iPhone 5: storage

Built-in storage is limited to 16, 32 or 64GB and - as before - you can't add more. In terms of connectivity, the iPhone 5 now has dual-band Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4. And as we mentioned, it's the first iPhone with 4G for faster mobile internet.

Storage is the Nexus 4's biggest downfall with only 8GB and 16GB models to choose from. Like the iPhone, there's no microSD card slot.

Nexus 4 vs iPhone 5: cameras

The Nexus 4's 8Mp rear and 1.3Mp front facing cameras provided us with decent results. The easy to use camera app includes an HDR mode and Photo Sphere for 360 degree panoramas.

There's been no major update to the iPhone 5's rear camera. It still takes 8-megapixel photos and 1080p video. Photos look slightly better than those from the 4S, perhaps helped by the new sapphire crystal lens.

Sound recording is improved, though, thanks to three microphones, including one next to the rear camera.

From the front, the camera can now capture HD video, and it's now possible to make FaceTime calls over cellular 3G or 4G connections.

Nexus 4 vs iPhone 5: software

The iPhone 5 runs iOS 6. There are plenty of improvements to the interface, including more options when receiving calls, more streamlined email and reminders apps, and better integration with Facebook.

Google Maps have been replaced with Apple's own Maps app. It includes impressive 3D maps of several cities, but it lacks an equivalent of Google's Street View and there are some worrying inaccuracies which we hope will be sorted very soon. You can, of course, simply install Google Maps.

Nexus 4 vs iPhone 5: verdict

The iPhone 5 is a classy act with great raw speed and unsurpassed build quality. The Nexus 4 is a close rival, at a much cheaper price. Select either of these phones and you won't be disappointed.